---
title: But at the merchant's last words Ali Cogia resolved to lay the cause… — The Arabian Nights Entertainments · tree and pragmatics
description: But at the merchant's last words Ali Cogia resolved to lay the cause of the quarrel before them, and told them the whole story. Who acts: Ali, merchant. A sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 36, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Opening, part 36, sentence 78

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But at the merchant's last words Ali Cogia resolved to lay the cause of the quarrel before them, and told them the whole story.

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**Who acts:** Ali, merchant · **What happens:** resolve, lay, tell, word, cause · **To what, where:** last words, cause, whole story, words, quarrel · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Opening, part 36. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Ali, merchant), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg128:36:78
# text = But at the merchant's last words Ali Cogia resolved to lay the cause of the quarrel before them, and told them the whole story.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
2	at	at	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	merchant	merchant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	's	's	PART	POS	_	4	case	_	_
6	last	last	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	_
8	Ali	Ali	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
9	Cogia	Cogia	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	flat	_	_
10	resolved	resolve	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	lay	lay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	cause	cause	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	quarrel	quarrel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	_
18	before	before	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
21	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
22	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	_
23	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	iobj	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	26	det	_	_
25	whole	whole	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	26	amod	_	_
26	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **resolve** | past | Ali |  |  | the merchant's last words |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **lay** | to-infinitive | Ali *not said here* | the cause of the quarrel |  |  | before words *= word* |  | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent cause=Theme before they=Destination |
| 3 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | Ali *not said here* | the whole story | words *= word* |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent they=Recipient story=Topic |
| 4 | **word** |  | the merchant |  |  |  |  |  | nom word «communication transitive»: poss=agent |
| 5 | **cause** |  |  | the quarrel |  |  |  |  | nom cause «event transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Arabian Nights Entertainments» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 128 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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